Tuesday, January 27, 2009

The Gray Cloud

The Matron thought long and hard about posting this (well, okay, more than 30 seconds) because her brother and sister--not her mother--know about and sometimes read this blog. She understands that they have an entirely different relationship with their mother than the Matron does. So this is her experience, only.

When the Matron was a Youngish Miss, 29 or 30, something disturbing happened to her. All she wanted to do was run this event by her mother, even though past experience and common sense told her that such Outreach would not unfold as hoped for. What Young Miss hoped for was that her mother would say something like this: "I love you. Everything is going to be all right. "

Seems like reasonable enough expectations?

Instead, here's what her mother said in the dark face of her daughter's crisis and need: "Please don't tell me anything about your personal life again."

Yes, she can hear you gasping. And you know those are the exact words, because how can you forgot something like that?

Those words broke Young Miss's heart. She hung up the phone and wept for hours. Thankfully, Young Miss was seeing a very wise therapist at the time who declared her mother's statement a great gift. The therapist advised the Matron to honor her mother's request and not tell her anything about her personal life, ever, again.

Wait until she asks about something, advised the therapist. Only then, because you'll know that your mother really wants to know.

To this day, the Matron's mother does not know where her daughter works, the kind of classes she teaches, how relationship with her husband is, what her dissertation was on, what she minored in in college or graduate school, if she's volunteering at school or elsewhere, how the births of the children went, if there's retirement or college money, what restaurants the Matron likes or what books she's been reading.

Your mother must live in a very tiny confined little world, if there is no room for the wonderful you. I am sorry to hear it, but I hope, and really know it, that you have lots of other wonderful people who do give a damn, because it is all worth knowing. I for one, love to hear the details of your life and am always much intrigued and amused by them and admire you a lot.

Dear Lord - and I thought my mother was the Queen of Avoidance. Absolutely amazing what you've achieved without the support of your mother. And you certainly know how to love and support your children - it shines through on your blog.

I'm so sorry for both you and your mother. (BTW, I originally typed *my* mother--do you think that means something?) I occasionally tell my daughter not to tell me certain things, but they are usually of a sexual nature. I will be nsure that she knows I care about her and am interested in her life. Thank you.

I have been a lurker here. And I know this is probably not the time to comment. That said, here I am. Your friends are telling you all of the wonderful things that you should be hearing. Because that's what they are here for. :) And they are your friends. Let me add that your therapist was right. Your mother gave you a great gift that day and your therapist was wise to tell you how to accept it. I have spent over forty years telling my mother things, asked questions! and getting sucked in (like Kelly) but then completely ignored when I try to answer. My mother is a complete narcissist who cannot and will not listen to her children unless they are talking about HER and their love for her.

I am so very sorry for what she said to you in your time of need. And that she has not reached out to know you since then. But know that there are many others who delight in all your accomplishments and it is obvious that your friends will be there for your dark times, as well.

One of the most incomprehensible, awful, unbearable, painful things about this world is that people have faults. Often huge, gaping ones. Even (sometimes especially) our moms, who of course are supposed to be perfect. And we're supposed to love them anyway. And also--so the Matron tells me--we're supposed to receive these flaws and say thank you.

?

Incomprehensible. And painful. And awkward. And very, very real. But it has made a beautiful thing, in its awfulness.

Know that you ARE loved. And I will listen to any of those things, any time. I know it's not the same, and you just want your mom sometimes, but it's all I have to give you.

I recall reading in a sociological text the statement families as slaughterhouses of the nation. Then there followed memoirs, some so shattering as Jeanette Walls' "The Glass Castle," one of many where that phrase took on added resonance.

We need only look into our histories to see battles waged, some won, many lost, scars that remain and patterns, unknowingly and without our consent, that reappear in different guises and with different players.

In "Are you Somebody?" Nuala O'Faolain details her relationship with her family, her parents' marriage, the domestic dramas that play out years and years afterward, and only later, much later, can she look back with less recrimination, with some acknowledgement that as two people, they were only as big as she.

I can only hope for the same forgiveness for whatever slights, real or perceived, have pained.

For whatever reason I have found that women of a certain generation (including my mother) are often very selfish individuals who don't care about anyone but themselves and (possibly) their husband. My theory on this is that perhaps they felt they had to have children whether they wanted to or not - and there were not really any convenient ways to avoid it the way we can now. So maybe if these ladies were born into our generation they would never have had children. But then we would not be here! So I can be grateful to my mother for my existence yet saddened that she most likely wished I did not exist.

Oh serendipitous! I was thinking of Nuala O'Faolain on my way to work this morning - of her writing and her wrenching radio interview in which she sobbed "I don't want to die." I so love her work and miss her on the planet. I think that perhaps some women of my mother's generation (she's in her late sixties) didn't have much choice -- you got married and had babies. I think she was just overwhelmed and unhappy in her marriage from day one and by extension, with everything else. Families as slaughterhouses, indeed.

Ouch on so many levels. Though we want our parents to be able to help us through things, our parents are human too…and sometimes they are not at a point in their own lives where they CAN help us shoulder our burdens. Or can even shoulder their own burdens.... whether we are cognizant of our parents issues or not, sometimes they are just too heavy. It sounds like hers were.

Even though we long to be mothered...sometimes we have to BE the mother.

Hoo Boy MM! Reading your posts and the comments above leave me feeling exhausted - as I would after an intense therapy session.Yes, oh Yes, the questions followed by the glazed eyes and the interruptions about the cat...So hard to not take it personally - since it was modeled by my Mom, I look for it in everyone. Ouch.And guess who is guilty of the same behavior?

Me.

Mary - I, like you, am going to turn off my inner chatter today and am going to listen with attuned ears to the intricacies of Star Wars Legos and the latest Choir song that is being warbled over and over.

My dissertation was titled "The Anorexic's Story" and it analyzed how the narrative of anorexia became folklore. Everyone can describe and even diagnose anorexia - the seamlessness of this narrative keeps us from understanding that much 'normal' female eating is disordered. That was the dissertation :-).

I had dreadful mothering as a child - after my dad died my mother started drinking - a lot - talking to her dead husband, going out to bars - coming home falling down drunk sometimes. I took care of her and my younger brother and sister - my older brother cocooned... She stopped drinking when I was an adult and though we never talked about it, I know she regretted all the dreadful mothering and tried her best to be a good mom and grandma until the day she died. I miss her much and had that healing time not occurred where she stopped drinking my ache for her would be a different kind of ache.

You have overcome and accomplished so much, Mary - so glad you made it here - in spite of your mom's carelessness! Hope you can think of how much you are loved when that gray cloud moves in.

Someone should write a dissertation on whether women with pathologically detached mothers are more likely to go into college teaching. Any psychology or sociology takers out there?

I am as amazed as everyone else by your gifts and the grace with which you share them on this blog. And even more amazed that you can summarize your diss in a comment box paragraph. THAT, my dear, is TALENT.

Wow, Mary. I mean really. . .wow, to you and to all the comments. I DID need to see this. I wanted to comment on the utter lack of choices for these women, be it birth control or career options. I have to commend this generation for the fight that they waged. The battle scars are no less obvious than the soldier's coming home with PTSD, I guess. They were supposed to love us because we were the children--and some of our mothers couldn't hold up. . .I try hard to put myself into my mother's shoes to see the world through her eyes. It is a vindictive, angry place with such an outrageous, sticky gloss of false optimism that cracks the second she puts that brandy to her mouth. . .it makes me feel such utter fatigue.